2 Peter 1:4 Through these he has given us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become sharers in the divine nature having escaped the corruption in the world caused by coveting.
Promises Are for Trusting
2 Peter 1:4 says that the way to share in the divine nature is through God’s promises. How do you use a promise to escape moral corruption and share in God’s nature? By trusting it. A promise has its intended effect when the person receiving it trusts it. If I make a promise to my grandkids, whatever effect I’m hoping that promise will have won’t happen unless they believe the promise. If I want them to be happy, so I promise them a treat, the happiness won’t come unless they believe they’ll actually get the treat and that the treat will be good. So it’s not enough to just write down all the promises you can find in the Bible. If you don’t trust a promise, it’s not going to have any effect on you.
You could define faith as welcoming one of God’s promises from a distance.
Hebrews 11:13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.
Faith is believing something you can’t see just because you trust the one who promised it.
All Choices Come from Trusting Promises
And you know your faith is real—you know you truly believe a promise—when you act on it. You make decisions based on that promise that you would not make if the promise were in doubt. If I say, “Give me your retirement savings to invest and I’ll double it in one year. If you have any question about whether I’ll fulfill that promise, you’re not going to do it. Hebrews 11 is a whole chapter of stories of people deciding to do things no one in his right mind would do unless he was sure God would fulfill the promises.
Every choice you ever make in life is based on some kind of promise. The reason we sin is we believe sin’s promise that it will make us happy or satisfy us. That sin promises to satisfy our desire for revenge, our craving for pleasure, our quest for greatness—in some way, sin promises to satisfy. And every time you sin, it’s because you believed that promise.
You can try your hardest, but you will never resist a sin for very long as long as you believe its promises. You might resist it for an hour or a day or even a few months, but eventually your soul will find its way back to that thing it believes will satisfy.
So the only way to have long term change is to believe a better promise—a promise of something that’s more desirable. That’s why Peter says all this transformation—changing your desires, escaping corruption, sharing in God’s nature—all of it comes through trusting God’s promises.
Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
I’m tempted to find fulfillment in something or someone other than God, and I remind myself, “If I find a way to take pleasure in God today, I’ll lay my head on my pillow at the end of the day satisfied and fulfilled.” That changes the direction of my pursuit—instead of running toward that other thing, now I’m oriented toward trying to find delight in God. Who knows how many different sins that can save me from throughout the day?
Another promise in that same psalm (and also quoted by Jesus in the beatitudes)—
Psalm 37:11 The meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.
I get into a conflict with someone—they hurt me, insult me, belittle me—and I’m tempted to retaliate, give them the silent treatment or some harsh words or whatever, then I remember this promise and think, “If I just respond with humble meekness, all this anxiety and turmoil and angst roiling in my heart—it will evaporate into sweet, calm, inner peace.” That’s going to change the way I act in a conflict.
Power Through Promises
Solution to Coveting Is Trusting God’s Promises
And it’s not a generalized trust that just says, “I believe all the promises in the Bible are true.” The power is unleashed for a specific spiritual problem when you trust in a specific promise that relates to that issue. For example, in v.4 Peter tells us that all the corruption in the world is caused by coveting. If we could overcome greed and become content, we would escape moral corruption. So how do you overcome greed and learn contentment? By trusting a promise. Which promise?
Hebrews 13:5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because [Okay, here comes the secret on how to do it] God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
A promise. The writer of Hebrews must have been talking to Peter. He knew that to overcome coveting or any other sin, you have to trust a promise, so when he calls us to contentment, he supplies the exact promise we’ll need.
So you find yourself slipping into greed, you’re starting to love money, or you lack contentment. And you’re struggling to overcome that sin, you’re not having success, so you ask, “What am I not getting about God? What promise am I failing to trust?” And he gives you the answer.
Hebrews 13:5 … "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
That’s the promise that will unlock the divine power to obey that command. Somewhere in that promise lies the power to overcome greed. If you could trust that promise more, your greed would go away.
You might have to study that promise for a few months. Examine it, meditate on it, look at it from every angle, listen to some sermons on it. But somewhere in that promise lies the key that will unleash diving power to free you up from the chains of greed and give you contentment. Trusting in a specific promise is the only way you’ll overcome that sin or any other sin.
The Power Comes from Yes
Fighting sin always involves saying no to sin and saying yes to something better. The thing we have to remember is that there is no power in the saying no part. You do have to say no to sin (Titus 2:12 says the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness). But the power for change doesn’t come from the saying no part—it comes from the saying yes part.
When your desire is fixed on that sin and you say, “I’ll just force myself to say no”—that won’t work for long. What works is when you say, “I see that sin and I see what God offers instead, and I want what God offers more.” When you put your attention on that good thing that you can say yes to, that’s what will transform your desires.
I believe the most important lesson in the whole Bible on coveting comes from the first two times that word is used in the Bible—Genesis 2 and 3. The word refers to when you gaze at something in a way that stirs up desire. In Genesis 2, that word is used to describe all the trees in the Garden of Eden. God created those trees to be gazed upon and desired. But then in ch.3 Eve gazed at what was forbidden and ended up desiring that instead. The implication is if she had set her attention on any of the other trees instead of that tree, she would have been fine.
And what are the good things that we need to set our gaze on in a way that stirs up desire? Everything God has promised. The promises are an orchard full of good, Garden of Eden trees as far as the eye can see. Focus on those, and your desires will change.
And when you transform your desires, you’ll reach that goal of escaping the corruption in the world. And the result of that will be participation in the divine nature—experiential knowledge of God.
Even Jesus used promises to motivate himself to do endure suffering and persevere without sinning.
Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross.
What was the joy set before him? It was all that the Father had promised. Jesus was subject to all the same human weakness as we are, but he was able to do what he did because of the power that came from God’s promises. And we’re called to fix our eyes on him and follow his example.
How to Utilize a Promise
So, let’s talk about the nuts and bolts of how to utilize a promise.
1) Ask What is the purpose of this promise?
First, ask “What is the purpose of this promise?” What does God want to accomplish by giving this promise?
The biggest clue is if it’s conditional or unconditional. If it’s unconditional, the purpose is for you to be encouraged or to prepare for what’s promised.
If it’s conditional, where God says, “If you do X, then I’ll do Y,” the obvious purpose is to motivate you to do X. We see one of those down in v.10 of 2 Peter 1.
2 Peter 1:10 … if you do these things, you will never fall.
The purpose of that promise is to motivate you to “do these things.”
Unconditional Promises
If it’s an unconditional promise—something God says he will do regardless of what you do, then the purpose is for your hope in that promise to drive your emotions and decisions. For example, in Mt.28:30
Matthew 28:20 … I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
What was Jesus trying to accomplish by making that promise? In the context, he said it right after telling us to make disciples of all nations. You might feel a little uneasy about going to another culture and telling them they have to forsake their gods and their religion and beliefs and bow the knee to your God. So if you’re a little intimidated, maybe it doesn’t feel like it’s your place or you don’t have the right to make demands like that on people, Jesus says, “All authority has been given to me, so go do this and I will be with you while you do it.” He wants the promise to give us courage. That’s one purpose I can think of. No doubt there are many others that would come to mind if you gave it some thought.
Consider the Purpose of the Conditions
And here’s a little hidden gem most people miss—if it’s a conditional promise, consider the purpose of the condition. If I took a poll and asked people, “Which do you like more—God’s conditional promises or his unconditional promises?” I’m guessing most people, if they were honest, would say, “I like the unconditional ones best.” In our culture, we love the concept of unconditional love. When we find out there are conditions, we think, “Oh, there’s a catch. The fine print.” And that spoils the promise because the reason fine print is so fine is the lawyers know that if you actually read it, you won’t agree to the deal. Most of the time, conditions are not in your favor—they’re in the other person’s favor. The plumber will come and unclog my drain. Great—that’s in my favor. But he’ll only do it on the condition that I pay him a bunch of money. That’s in his favor. It’s a trade—off. So before I’m willing to make the deal, I need to know how much that conditional part is going to cost me so I can decide if it’s worth it.
God’s conditional promises are never like that. He never says, “I’ll do this for you if you do that for me.” We can’t do anything for him. He already has everything. We can’t scratch God’s back.
So if we have nothing to offer him, why does he attach conditions to so many of his promises? They’re all for us! The promise is in your favor, and the condition is also in your favor. It’s like a mom telling a child, “If you eat your vegetables, I’ll give you a treat.” Who does the treat benefit? The child. Who does eating the veggies benefit? The child. Mom’s not making this offer because she gains anything from it. She’s only doing it as a way of persuading the child to do something that’s good for the child.
Matthew 6:14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
The promise is, God will forgive you—that’s what you get out of the deal. But what’s the condition? You have to forgive people who sin against you. Is that good for you or bad for you? It’s very good for you. Hold on to bitterness and unforgiveness, and you make yourself miserable and destroy yourself. Let go of that and forgive, and joy can return.
God uses something you know is good as an incentive to motivate you to do something else that’s also good for you. It’s kind of like if I told the plumber, “I’ll pay you a bunch of money if you fix the drain in your own house.” The conditions on God’s promises are not fine print or catches, the conditions are just as much a gift of grace as the thing promised. God never requires anything of you that’s not ultimately good for you—even if it’s a martyr’s death.
So that’s the first step—think through the purpose of the promise. Next, focus on building your desire for the thing promised.
2) Build Your Desire for the Thing Promised
Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
The implied promise is conditional—if you are pure in heart then you will see God. If you’re not, then you won’t. So the purpose is to motivate me to maintain purity. How will that give me power to resist a temptation toward impurity? It will only work if I want to see God more than I want the pleasure of that sin.
At the moment of temptation, what’s going to prevent me from saying, “I’m fine with not seeing God for now. I’ll forfeit that so I can do this sin”? The only thing that will prevent me from having that attitude is a strong, powerful, driving desire to see God. And a deep, gripping fear of life of blindness to God. Or even a period of blindness to God.
I read about a guy who had been completely enslaved to pornography all his life. He had tried everything to change. Despite all his efforts, he couldn’t escape. Then, one day, this promise hit him like a ton of bricks. God opened his eyes to the value of seeing God, and suddenly he wanted that so bad, when he was confronted with porn he just said, “Yeah, I’d rather see God than see this.” And never fell into that sin again.
So it’s no enough to just memorize the promise. I need to spend time studying and meditating on what it means to see God and all the implications so my desire for that is stronger than my craving for sin.
Reward in Heaven
One of the hardest promises to value is the one Jesus used probably more often than any other one, namely, the generic promise of reward in heaven without any specifics of what that reward is. Some Christians even take pride in not being motivated by reward. They say, “I’m not in this for selfish reasons. I just do what is right out of the pure goodness of my heart.”
My question for those people is this: Would you like to get to judgment day and have God say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”? If the answer is no—you don’t care about that, then you don’t love God. If the answer is yes, then you do care about rewards because that’s the greatest reward of all.
You can’t separate God’s rewards from God himself. You can’t love God and not care about his rewards. That’s like a man telling his wife, “I just love you. I don’t want your hugs and kisses, I don’t care about any of your expressions of love, I’m not interested in anything you do for me—I just do things for you out of the goodness of my heart.” What you’re saying to your wife is, “Your expressions of love are worthless. What really matters are my expressions of love.”
Serving God out of the goodness of your heart and not for the rewards he offers exalts you, not God. And if you’re not motivated by something God says should be motivating, that’s not a good thing. You’re saying your ideas about morality are better than God’s.
From front to back the Bible calls us to live for reward because the most important thing in the universe is the glory of God, and the primary way to glorify God is by trusting him. So when he says, “Trust me—if you do this, I’ll make it worth your while”—if you trust him, that will motivate you. If it doesn’t motivate you, it’s because you don’t trust him.
When Jesus promises reward in heaven, without defining it or giving any illustrations—just the generic, abstract concept of “reward,” Jesus expected that to be incredibly motivational to us.
Luke 6:22 … When people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.
When you’re being mistreated and hated and rejected, it’s very difficult to feel anything but sadness or anger. If you work really hard, you can sometimes put it out of your mind and not feel quite so bad. But Jesus says, “No, you should rejoice with such exuberant, genuine happiness that it makes you leap for joy—jump up off the ground because you’re so happy. What could possibly enable you to have a response like that when you’re being rejected and hurt by people? Just a simple 6-word promise: Great is your reward in heaven.
No one naturally hears that and starts jumping for joy. It takes a lot of thought, a lot of meditation, consideration, contemplation about what that reward is going to be like before it’s going to have any effect at all on your emotions.
John 15:10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.
What’s the purpose of that conditional promise? Obviously, to motivate us to obey. Obeying is good for you, it will benefit you greatly, but Jesus knows we need some incentive to do what’s good for us, so he gives this promise: you will remain in my love. If you have an area of disobedience you’re struggling with, do you think it might be worth it to spend a week or two contemplating what this reward of remaining in, abiding in, dwelling in his love really means? Wouldn’t it be great to get to the point where remaining in his love is something you want so desperately and treasure so deeply that the next time you’re tempted to forfeit that, the idea of losing it is so upsetting that the sin isn’t even an option anymore?
Positive and Negative
And by the way, this all applies to both positive and negative promises. Last time in the Q&A the question came up about the negative side. Some preachers say we should stay away from talking about negative consequences because people are more motivated by the positive. One of my editors for my anxiety book didn’t like it that in the chapter on how to become a Christian I talked about the threat of hell. She said, “Stick with positive motivations. Talking about hell will only increase people’s anxiety.”
People think they know better than God, who is the one who put the negative warnings in his Word. Remember, a promise is anything God says about the future, positive or negative.
Matthew 6:15 If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
That’s a promise. It’s a negative promise, but it’s just as great and precious as any of the positive promises.
When it’s a conditional promise, the positive side has no meaning without the negative side. For it to have any meaning, there has to be the possibility of not getting the thing promised. Suppose you want to motivate a college student with a positive promise, so you say, “If you come to class every day and study hard, in 4 years, you’ll have a diploma.” And he says, “What if I don’t ever go to class and just party the whole 4 years?” And you say, “Oh, you’ll still get the diploma—everyone gets one,” will your positive promise motivate him? No. The promise of the positive has no motivating power if the negative isn’t a possibility.
When Jesus says, “If you forgive others, God will forgive you,” that has no motivational force if you’ll be forgiven either way. When John says, “If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins”—that has no meaning if God will forgive your sins whether you confess or not. The value of a positive promise depends on how dire the negative would be, so the more horrible the negative promises, the more precious the positive ones.
3) Trust the Promise
Okay, so how do you utilize a promise to give you spiritual power to share in God’s nature? Think through the purpose of the promise, warm your heart to the value of what is promised, and then … trust it. The most essential component for interacting with a promise from God is simply believing that it’s true.
If you’re not fully convinced that disobedience will remove you from the realm of Christ’s love that you desire so strongly—if you have it in the back of your mind that you can disobey and still remain in his love—then the promise won’t work. If you think you can obey him and still not remain in his love, the promise won’t work.
If you think you can be pure in heart and still not see God, the promise won’t work. If you think you can indulge in impurity and you won’t necessarily be blinded to God, the promise won’t work. You have to believe the promise is true.
Believing it’s true is one part of faith. Another part is trust. Where is your confidence? Is it in your own willpower? Is your confidence in your knowledge or your methods or your character or motivation? Or is it in the promise?
Watch for the Right Promise
I had originally planned to provide a list of promises to trust to overcome specific spiritual problems. If you struggle with self-control, trust this promise, if you have anxiety, trust this promise, anger, this promise, etc. But I decided against that because God’s promises have so many implications, I don’t think you can just pigeonhole them for one issue.
Some promises have obvious applications for specific things. For example, if you’re struggling with anything related to getting older—health problems or memory problems or anything like that—Isaiah 46:4 will always be an encouragement.
Isaiah 46:4 Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
If you’re struggling with regret and distress over what’s happened in your past, trust the promise in:
Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
If you’re worried about the future, trust Jesus’ promises in Matthew 6:24-34 about how God cares for the birds and the flowers—how much more will he care for his children? Those “how much more” arguments are some of the most encouraging of all God’s promises. My favorite is Ro.8:32. This is one that will encourage you no matter what you’re worried about.
Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Whatever it is you need, is it bigger than the gift of God sacrificing his Son for you? Is there any gift you could ask God for and he would say, “I’ll gladly sacrifice my Son for you, but this other thing—that’s asking too much”? No. If he already gladly gave you the biggest imaginable gift, he’s not going to withhold any smaller gift that would be good for you. And everything in the universe is smaller than the gift of his Son.
When you’re in trouble, how about this promise: Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
When you need God to show himself strong, how about this promise: 2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of Yahweh roam throughout the earth to show Himself strong for those whose hearts are completely His.
So there are promises that are an obvious fit for certain struggles, and it might be good to work on piecing together a list like that of specific promises for specific issues. But most of God’s promises have broad applications. For example, the promise that God gives grace to the humble. Peter used that promise to help young men have the right attitude toward older people in the church. James used that promise to help people who were arguing and fighting with each other. One promise can help you with a whole range of different spiritual problems.
So rather than try to create a list like that, maybe a better approach would be to just simply read the Bible, and as you come across promises, meditate on the purposes and the value of what’s promised and any conditions; and then pray about whether that promise could help you with whatever it is you’re currently struggling with.
A good place to start might be Isaiah 58:9.
Isaiah 58:9 … If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. 11 The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Seven promises with 5 conditions. God promises that if you meet the conditions, he’ll give you 7 things:
1) Your light will rise in the darkness.
2) Your night will become like the noonday.
3) He will guide you always.
4) He will satisfy your needs.
5) He will strengthen you.
6) You will be like a well-watered garden.
7) You’ll be like a spring whose waters never fail.
Great. That’s a lot in your favor. But what are the conditions you have to meet in order to get all those benefits? There are five.
1. If you do away with the yoke of oppression.
2. If you do away with the pointing finger.
3. If you do away with malicious talk.
4. If you spend yourself in behalf of the hungry.
5. If you satisfy the needs of the oppressed.
Does God need you to do all that? Or do you think God has the power to get all that done on his own? He could give every blessing imaginable to the poor and oppressed. God wants you to live that way because that’s the best life for you. Living that way will bring you the greatest joy and fulfillment. Conclusion
This is such an important topic, I strongly urge you to study this further. And the best resource I know for that is a 2-part lecture by John Piper titled “The Purifying Power of God’s Promises.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ppRI_uYvs&t=8613s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ppRI_uYvs&t=8613s
There’s also a link for Piper’s response to a question titled “John Piper’s Most Used Promises.”
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/john-pipers-most-used-promises
Pagan Lingo
Not Absorbed
I made the point last time that we will never be absorbed into God. Pagan religions often have this idea that you’re like a drop of water, and in the next life you just drop into the ocean of God, so you completely lose your unique identity. Other false religions teach variations on the idea that we become gods.
None of that is biblical, but the pagans of Peter’s time who taught those things, used this lingo of having the divine nature. So why would Peter use their lingo?
Use the World’s Lingo to Correct the World’s Thinking
He does that all through his book. Why would Peter use the very lingo the pagans were using to teach their unbiblical ideas? It’s a strategy. It’s the same strategy Paul used in passages like Acts 17 where he would commandeer the language of the false religions and speak biblical truth using their words.
Everything belongs to Christ, and Paul wasn’t willing to cede any ground to the enemy—not even words. So he took them back. “You can’t have these words. These words are for the glory of God, so I’m going to take them back from you and use them to speak truth about God instead of the lies you’re speaking.”
It’s exactly what 2 Cor.10 is talking about when it says we take every thought captive and force it into obedience to Christ. People always apply that verse to their own thoughts, but that’s not what it’s talking about. It’s talking about wrong thoughts people try to propagate about God. Take those thoughts captive and correct them with God’s Word.
Peter says, “You’re right to want God’s nature.” Then Peter uses a word they never used when they talked about it. Peter says, through the promises, we become sharers in the divine nature.
Get Their Attention
We can still use this strategy today because false religions are still teaching the idea that we can have a divine nature. Mormonism teaches that we can become gods. New Age philosophy teaches that we are divine. There’s a book titled “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” that is a runaway bestseller, very popular, and it addresses some topics I deal with in my book, so I thought I’d listen through it. I listened to less than one chapter and then tossed it aside when he said something like, “We can never realize our human identity until we embrace of divinity.” And even within Christianity, some heretics, like Kenneth Copland have taught that.
We can use Peter’s strategy and use this “nature of God” language but force those ideas into obedience to God’s Word. “You like the idea of having a divine nature? Great. Let’s talk about that. You could say, “I can see the appeal of being absorbed into God, but Jesus taught that there’s something even better. He taught about participating in the divine nature while still maintaining your own identity forever. So God doesn’t absorb you and obliterate your identity; he enters you and transforms your identity. Doesn’t that sound better?”
Anytime you hear someone talk about humans becoming God or deification or anything like that, take them to this passage and show them the truth about it.
And generally speaking, in the public square, let’s not cede any ground or even any language to the world. Take every thought, idea, argument, word, or phrase and force it into obedience to Christ by correcting it with God’s Word.
Summary
All choices come from trusting a promise—sin’s promise or God’s. The power comes from saying yes, not no. Ask what the purpose of the promise is (and the condition), build your desire for the thing promised (positive and negative), and trust the promise. And take back the ground of pagan lingo, using it to teach the truth.
